Could be if you are limiting your research and recruiting efforts to just big data, free data, technology and social media.
Look beyond these restrictive and limiting resources.

It is time to train and retrain the brain. Recruiters seek intelligence that assists with creating exceptional candidate pipelines their hiring managers much deserve.

Looking for a great potential talent pool for your next search? I am sure you. Try not to just limit your efforts to the internet, social media and free or paid research/recruiting tools. I understand this may be a habit for many successful recruiters, however when you limit your efforts to just these resources, your are obviously limiting your search for talent. Wouldn't you agree? Recruiting requires linking intelligence with talent. This will provide the potential talent pool necessary for conducting a comprehensive search for talent.

No one can dispute the fact that there is plenty of data out there. However much of it has been found to be inaccurate, incomplete and at times borderline a waste of time! However good recruiters who have time, can weed through such data to find viable candidates. Yet, the process of doing so, can be exhaustive, time-consuming, inefficient and at times yield little results. Therefore time to retrain the brain. Look to linking intelligence with the talent you need to recruit.

Train the brain into believing that it is unrealistic to think that by simply posting, tweeting and using social media the best of breed will come. Long term, it is not a strategy that should be focused upon. Recruiting efforts need to be linking intelligence with talent to ensure a solid pipeline of candidates.

Linking intelligence with talent is much different then just having access to a limited, inaccurate, talent pool. Intelligence not only links a recruiter to specific potential talent but offers other benefits that save time and money. Intelligence provides relevant contacts, exact titles, reporting relationships, otherwise known as organization charts, direct dials, emails, and profiles. But more importantly, as this information is exploited, it suddenly creates an ideal candidate pipeline, compared to a candidate pipeline which is the result of such limiting efforts as an ad, a post, a tweet or from a social media outlet.
In simple terms, intelligence establishes a more focused recruiting process so that recruiters can deliver candidates to the hiring manager who have been carefully sought out, recruited and selected by both traditional recruiting efforts and the latest ones. No one can dispute the fact that limiting any recruiting efforts to a limited, closed network will of course hamper the search for qualified candidates. Not to exclude the fact that such efforts have been known to have delivered a limited, sub par slate of candidates who simply have responded to a "shout out!" or found amongst the limited talent pool and network the recruiter may only has access to. Huge difference, don't you think?

Don't have a disconnect between your candidate pipeline and the potential talent pool out there. Look to use intelligence to uncover the complete potential talent pool. Recruiters deserve to have access to such intelligence and more importantly, the hiring managers deserve it.

It's not too late to change or retrain the brain. Maybe it is time to reassess your research and recruiting methods. Don't limit yourself to only what is "available" to you, go beyond and you will see the difference.